Alaska Airlines flight attendant says she has colleagues ‘going without food right now’

SEATAC, Wash. — Hundreds of flight attendants lined International Boulevard outside the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport Tuesday afternoon, demanding better contracts. It was part of a Global Day of Action, including 30 airports nationwide.

One Alaska Airlines flight attendant told KIRO 7 it’s pretty normal to have an over ten-hour workday, but only get paid for five of those hours because of pay guidelines.

It’s reasons like that 99% of Alaska Airlines flight attendants say they’re ready to strike when the time comes.

“We have flight attendants who are living way below the poverty level,” said Alaska Airlines flight attendant, Erin Gailey. “We have flight attendants who are going without food right now.”

Higher pay is just one of the many demands Alaska Airlines flight attendants are negotiating for.

“We’re looking for industry-leading wages, but also we’re trying to end the standard practice of not being paid for our entire time on duty,” said the president of the local Associate of Flight Attendants, Paual Isla-McGill. “We want to get paid for boarding, we want to get paid for ground time when we’re stranded.”

Flight attendants said they can spend hours of unpaid time in airports and on planes.

“If the guests are delayed, we’re delayed,” said local Vice President Melinda Jorge. “They’re not flying, we’re not getting paid.”

They also say Alaska Airlines flight 1282, where the door plug blew mid-flight, and Japan Airlines flight 516, where flight attendants safely evacuated over 375 people from a burning plane, show how crucial the role is to keeping air travel safe.

“Our leadership after that flight was very vocal about how we are heroes and how they commended our professionalism and skills and then they tell us our demands are economically unfeasible, so if we’re heroes then we deserve a living wage,” said President Isla-McGill. 

Gailey also noted how important their jobs are.

“Every day somewhere in this nation a flight attendant is responding to a medical emergency possibly doing CPR and saving lives,” said Gailey.

Alaska Airlines said in a statement in part:

We remain optimistic in the negotiations process. With six recently closed labor deals at the company and a tentative agreement reached in January for a new contract for our technicians, we’re hopeful to do the same for our flight attendants as soon as possible.

In terms of the airline’s flight attendants, 99% voted to authorize a strike. 

The Association of Flight Attendants has to request a 30-day cooling period from the National Mediation Board, meaning negotiations have deadlocked. If that 30-day cooling period is granted, the airline has 30 days to meet their demands, or a “chaos strike” will ensue, a tactic used the last time Alaska Airlines flight attendants had a strike in 1993.

“It can be a specific flight, a specific city, or any specific day but nobody really knows when it happens so it’s going to create a little bit of insecurity and uncertainty among the flying public on should I book my flight on Alaska Airlines, because what if they decide to strike that flight? Am I going to be able to make it to my business trip over there? Am I going to make it to vacation? Am I going to make it back from vacation?,” said President Isla-Mcgill. “

She continued, “It only affected a handful of flights but it was enough uncertainty with the flying public that bookings were down and management was forced to come to the table.”

The AFA local chapter said it doesn’t know when, or if, that strike will happen. 

Right now they still have to request for the 30-day cooling period from the Mediation Board.

Alaska Airlines’ statement continued:

We agree with our flight attendants that we need a new contract, which is why we’ve been working hard to get an agreement. We’ve been offering industry leading top-of-scale pay for months with an immediate 15% raise to the entire pay scale and additional raises every year. We’ve closed more than 50 tentative agreements – representing dozens of topics where we’ve found common ground.

We remain optimistic in the negotiations process. With six recently closed labor deals at the company and a tentative agreement reached in January for a new contract for our technicians, we’re hopeful to do the same for our flight attendants as soon as possible. AFA and Alaska leadership have met twice in the last three weeks and are continuing to bargain and meet with a mediator. Discussions have been productive and in the last two sessions, we reached four tentative agreements.

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